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The sting of 'You're fired!'

Management specialists decry Trump's ways

By Diane E. Lewis, Globe Staff, 10/3/04

You're fired!''

Real estate tycoon Donald Trump has made those two words among the most famous - and most feared - in the English lexicon.

But while The Donald and the NBC prime-time reality show ''The Apprentice'' have captivated television viewers, management specialists say the method Trump uses to fire people on the show is counterproductive.

Take the case of attorney and real estate investor Bradford Cohen, 33, of Florida. On a recent episode, he was granted immunity from the boardroom and the possibility of being dismissed by Trump because he had guided his team to victory. Confident that his performance would shield him from being fired, Cohen gave up his immunity in order to support his team leader in the boardroom. During the show, which aired Sept. 16, Trump told Cohen that he'd made a stupid mistake. Then he fired him.

Stacy Blake-Beard, an associate professor at the Simmons School of Management, said the episode might have shocked viewers but it accurately reflected the highly competitive nature of today's business world.

''The message of 'The Apprentice' is that to the extent that you look out for yourself above all else, you will be rewarded,'' she said. ''I think, in that sense, the show is a microcosm of the real world. Organizations talk about teamwork, but few of them promote it. They promote the star.''

Trump said in an e-mail that he strives to be fair. He also said the ultimate goal of ''The Apprentice'' is to find a job candidate who will fit in with the Trump organization and ''will represent me well.''

''Every situation is different. So, I don't have a black and white method,'' Trump said of his management style. ''I try to be fair at all times, and see the situation and the individual comprehensively.... My methods are progressive because I have to keep my organization moving forward. A lot of people have been with me for a long time, and they know that while I may be tough, I'm fair. However, an organization is not a democracy - I'm the boss and that's the way it is.''

Donald Trump (flanked by George Ross and Carolyn Kepcher) has riled management specialists with his behavior on "The Apprentice." Says Trump: "An organization is not a democracy."

Still, Scott W. Wimer, president and chief executive of Wimer Associates, a Santa Monica, Calif., management consulting firm, wasn't too happy with the Sept. 16 episode. When Trump fired Cohen, Wimer was stunned and appalled. Wimer, a regular viewer of ''The Apprentice,'' was so upset that he wrote an op-ed piece for The Los Angeles Times, criticizing Trump's actions.

''Last season, most of the time Trump was fairly civil,'' Wimer said. ''Not always, of course. There were a few episodes where I thought he was unnecessarily mean to people, but the decisions he made were usually good decisions, and there were good rationales for them. But this last one was poor, and he handled it abominably.''

Wimer said few organizations would fire a top-notch employee simply because he or she had turned down a generous offer from the boss.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, founder, president, and chief executive of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute at Yale University, doubts that Trump goes around barking ''You're fired!'' at his real employees. No boss could interact with workers that way and succeed, he said.

''In fact, most great companies do not fire people initially unless there is a situation of fraud or theft,'' Sonnenfeld said. ''And when they must, they use an objective yardstick. But Trump is highly popular on television. Twenty million people watch the show, but that does not mean they should emulate this kind of stuff. It is more what not to do than what to do.''

For some workers, however, the ruthlessness evident in certain episodes of ''The Apprentice'' is not far removed from their personal experiences.

Michael Woodward, a former flight service manager in Boston, said he received excellent reviews and performance evaluations before he was laid off more than a year ago.

Woodward, who had been on the job 13 years, said his boss had disclosed that one of the company's 12 local managers would lose work. But he was taken aback when she called him into her office.

''I had an excellent relationship with my peers and the 150 flight attendants that reported directly to me,'' he said in an e-mail. ''On July 3, 2003, I was told that I would be the person laid off. She made me work the entire day before she had the guts to lay me off.''

Blake-Beard, of Simmons, recalled watching colleagues during layoffs at a large technology firm being escorted to their desks by company representatives, and then led out the door. Blake-Beard, who was employed at the firm at the time, said the sight of co-workers being asked to leave led to poor morale.

''There was no warning,'' she said. ''They would give the person a box, and ask them to empty their desks, turn in the key, and then go. It was disturbing to see. It created anxiety, a survivor syndrome where the people who remained had to deal with the dehumanizing way people were dismissed. They had to deal with the psychological ramifications of whether their own jobs were secure.''

That's not unusual, said Harvey Schwartz, a partner at the Boston law firm of Rodgers, Powers & Schwartz. He said employers began using that discharge method about a decade ago, not realizing that such tactics could lead to lawsuits.

''It's difficult to come up with a better way for an employer to give an employee an incentive or reason to run to a lawyer,'' he said.

''The best-case scenario is progressive discipline with a verbal warning and written warnings,'' Schwartz said. ''That protects the employee and the employer.''

Kathryn Cason, cofounder and chief executive of Requisite Organization International Institute, a management research and consulting firm in Gloucester, said ''The Apprentice'' is an exaggerated version of a dysfunctional workplace.

''The assumption is that you must be right all the time,'' she said. ''There is no room for error. Bradford made an error in judgment, but the assumption was that because he made one error in judgment he was not worth coaching. That approach weeds out the most creative people.''

Wimer, a workplace psychologist and leadership coach, agrees. He said companies that operate like ''The Apprentice'' breed fear and stifle creativity.

''People who work for a boss like that learn that their main objective is to do whatever they can to survive,'' he said. ''They don't take risks. In organizations with Trump-like behavior, people are running scared. Their main objective is to keep their heads down, remain inconspicuous, make safe decisions, and stay under the radar.''

Specialists say the best managers provide ongoing mentoring and evaluations, and they set achievable goals. When goals are not met, they consider termination.

On ''The Apprentice,'' however, participants receive no feedback until they enter the boardroom and come face to face with the possibility of being fired.

Brian Stern, president of Shaker Consulting Group Inc., an industrial psychology firm in Cleveland, said workers targeted for termination should be judged by objective criteria. But in the real world, many managers are reluctant to tell employees that their work is not up to par, or to provide guidelines for improvement. By the time the manager decides to fire the worker, the employee is unprepared - and surprised.

''It doesn't need to be ruthless or a dignity killer,'' Stern said about terminating a worker's job. ''It can be done discreetly ... and in a humane way.''

Diane E. Lewis can be reached at dlewis@globe.com.

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